


Total Recall

by SoloMoon



Series: Eleutherophobia [10]
Category: Animorphs (TV), Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Ableism, Gen, Panic Attack, Teenage-boy-typical levels of profanity, Tom Berenson POV, Victim Blaming, mental health stigma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-08
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-09-07 08:01:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8789944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoloMoon/pseuds/SoloMoon
Summary: As if getting subpoenaed to go testify at Visser One’s trial halfway around the world wasn’t enough of a pain in the butt, now Tom also has to put up with Jake and Cassie’s utter inability to communicate with each other like normal human beings.  Worst Eurotrip ever.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written to the sounds of [ "Crucify" by Tori Amos.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ipCKIxdHTs)
> 
> Set about a year after "Day the Earth Stood Still" and a few weeks after the end of "Ghost in the Shell," but these stories can be read in any order or alone. All you need to know from the earlier works is that Tom survived the final battle and currently has a job as Eva's administrative assistant.

 Jake sighed for the third or fourth time in the past half hour, staring at the floor like the linoleum had personally offended him.  “I hate flying,” he muttered.

I gave him a side-eyed look.

“Not like that,” he said.  “Airplanes!  I hate _airplanes_ , okay?"

We’d been standing around waiting for security checks for what felt like an eternity, and that was just to get onto the tiny private plane the U.N. had sent for us.  Between the Secret Service guys that the American government had decided should follow Jake around, the U.N. peacekeeper forces that were supposed to follow us both around, and the LAX security agents, I felt like a bug under a microscope. 

“When have you ever been in an airplane?” I asked.

Jake shrugged.  “The world was in danger, we had to get to Web Access America’s headquarters in Colorado, it was too far to fly the normal way...” 

One of the guys in suits and earpieces mouthed the words _the normal way_ to himself, shaking his head.

Jake didn’t appear to notice.  I knew he wasn’t just grumpy about the flying.  Or the security.  Or the fact that he probably wasn’t going to be able to avoid seeing Cassie at some point tomorrow.  Or the media shitstorm surrounding Visser One’s trial.

Okay, mostly it was the media shitstorm around the trial.  I could tell he was squirmy already just from this much scrutiny, and he wasn’t even in front of a camera yet.  Mom had forced us both to dress formal as soon as we left the house, and while I couldn’t care less, Jake looked like he was coming out of his skin.  He had already managed to wrinkle his slacks and deform the collar of his shirt. 

I sighed, because apparently it was catching.  “What’d you need with WAA?”

“Hmm?” Jake glanced over.  “Oh, uh, Joe Bob Finestre was a controller.”

I frowned.  “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it...”  Jake shrugged.  “It was pretty obvious.  He wasn’t part of the whole mainstream society, but there was definitely a yeerk involved.”

The collar of his shirt was sticking up on one side.  Automatically, I flattened it back down.  Jake batted my hand away with a scowl.

“Are you guys the ones who trashed his house?” I asked, rather than apologizing.  It hadn’t escaped my attention how badly he’d startled when I’d reached out toward him without warning, but I wouldn’t help either of us by drawing attention to it in front of thirty-odd strangers.  

Jake offered me a tight smile.  “I can neither confirm nor deny.”

“Yeah, yeah, all right.”

We were both distracted then by the Secret Service ushering us through the Gleet BioFilters that were becoming standard in all airports, for all that the risk of morph-capable terrorists was more disturbing than realistic.  After the BioFilters we got scanned with z-tracker wands to be sure that we weren’t carrying any extra life forms.  (“You know those things are only like seventy percent effective, right?” I asked, and Jake shot me a _shut-up_ glare.)  Then came the morph-scanners.  Then the old-school twentieth-century security checks. 

 _Be-DEEEEEEEET_.

Everyone in the room tensed.

After all that, it was the ordinary old metal detector that objected to my presence.  Blaringly so.

“If you could please remove any keys, change, or coins...” The TSA agent cleared his throat nervously, glancing around at the extra security.

I sighed.  “Sorry about that, I completely forgot—I have two pins and a metal plate in my tibia.  Right leg, just below the knee.  Kinda thought the morphing would get rid of them, but I guess not.”

Without having to be asked I widened my stance, spreading out my arms.  After confirming with his wand that the only place I showed up as metal was where I’d said, the TSA guy patted me down for weapons and poked my knee a couple times to be sure I wasn’t hiding a bomb in the joint.  Or something.

“How’d you break the leg?” he asked.

It was more than a casual question.  The other TSA people were watching me to see if I’d lie or act nervous.

“Got attacked by a whale,” I said.

Jake buried his face in the palm of his hand. 

The TSA guy stood up slowly.  “And what was the exact nature of the injury?”

It was clearly the standard next question in the set, but I could tell they were thrown and couldn’t decide whether to convict me or not.

“Um, open compound tibia-fibula fracture, cracked patella, torn ACL and MCL, some other stuff with muscle damage.  And I had a concussion and water in my lungs, but obviously they didn’t stick any metal in me to deal with that.”

“Water in your lungs?” he said slowly.

“I drowned a little bit,” I explained.

 _That_ got me a suspicious look.  “Because of this killer-attack whale.”

“I got better.”

The guy opened his mouth to ask another question, apparently realized he didn’t really have a script for this situation, and instead dropped back down into a crouch to pat down my knee some more.

“Well, it all seems to be okay,” he said at last. 

“Thanks.”  I walked out of the screening area to join Jake—who immediately smacked me on the arm.

“Nice going, Captain Ahab,” he said. 

I spread my hands defensively.  “What was I supposed to say?”

He looked like he couldn’t decide whether to be more amused or exasperated. “Well, for starters, you’re supposed to tell them if you have any pacemakers or prosthetics or anything _before_ the metal detectors—there are signs up all over the place—”

“Like I said, I thought the pins were gone.  Morphing the first time healed the rest of it.”

We were stopped at the door to that was finally going to take us outside to the airfield.  Presumably they were waiting to let us out until security had had time to do one more check of the runway for angry bombers.

“Rest of what?”  Jake frowned at me.

“All the many and special ways my knee was fucked up,” I said tiredly.  “Remember that cast the yeerk sawed off after six weeks?  Doctors said I was supposed to wear it for six _months_.  Which meant I could still walk but the range of motion went down by a good thirty percent, the stupid thing ached all the friggin’ time, and running... well, it sucked.”  I rolled my eyes.  “‘Course, the yeerks’ whole ‘you break it, you bought it’ policy meant that Essa four-one-two’s punishment for damaging valuable property was to be stuck with me, so—”

“‘ _Property_?’” Jake said sharply.

I grimaced.  “Slip of the tongue.”

“That’s a hell of a slip.”

I smiled bitterly.  “Yeah, and Stockholm ain’t just a city in Sweden.”

He looked pained.

“I know perfectly well that I’m a strong independent human being with rights and autonomy and I don’t belong to anyone or anything and anyway I didn’t mean it so please stop looking so emotionally constipated,” I said all in one breath.

“All clear,” a balding Secret Service guy said.  Luckily, it distracted Jake before he could say anything else.

“ _Anyway_ ,” I said, as we walked across the tarmac.  “As I was saying before we got sidetracked, you’re not supposed to lie to airport security."

Jake raised an eyebrow.  “You could’ve just told them you fell off a dock,” he said pointedly.  “Also technically true.”

“People do not break their legs falling six inches off a dock into ten feet of water,” I said.  “ _That_ sounds like a shitty attempt to lie.”

He paused when climbing the short stairs to the airplane door, casting a glance over his shoulder at me.  “Right, because what you said wasn’t suspicious _at all_.”

“So I should’ve told them I broke my leg because you sicced your girlfriend on me?”

“Cassie is _not_ —”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.”

He stepped onto the airplane and stopped immediately.

I peered around him—and whistled softly.  There were soft couch-style seats surrounded by dark wood paneling, gleaming mirrors, and windows larger than any I’d ever seen on an airplane.  The mini-fridge built into the wall had a glass door so we could see the fully stocked wet bar inside, complete with tiny bottles of vodka and gin. 

“See?” I said.  “Flying _not the normal way_ isn’t all bad.”

Jake snorted.  “Tell me that again six hours from now.  We should be about halfway there by then.”

****************

Cassie was staring at me with her mouth slightly open like I was a bizarre new piece of information she couldn’t compute.  Marco was trying and largely failing to hide his smirk by pressing his lips together.  Possibly because they had both just seen me all but grab Jake by the scruff of his neck and drag him across the restaurant in order to plunk him down at the table between the two of them.  

Jake was ignoring both of them in favor of trying to glare me to death, but I was resolutely ignoring him as well. 

“Hi?” Cassie said at last.

“You know, we were just wondering where you were.”  Marco nudged Jake with his elbow.  At least he had a straight face on now. 

Jake was too busy continuing to try and light me on fire with the force of his stare to answer.

“Great, then,” I said brightly.  “I’ll just leave you guys at it.”

Jake stood up immediately.  “Yeah.  We’d hate to impose—”

I sat down across from him.  “Mind if we join you?”

Jake sat back down.

“Not at all,” Marco said.

“Great,” I said again.

Cassie turned to Jake, who immediately flinched his eyes away from hers.  “We were just talking about you,” she said softly.  “Wondering how you’ve been.”

There was a long silence.  Jake looked down, fiddling with the napkin ring in front of him.  At last he shrugged.  “Y’know.  How are you?”

Marco made eye contact with me and mouthed, _you are evil._

I gave a tiny bow.   _Thank you_.

“It’s been crazy, you know?” Cassie was saying.  “The State Department has been totally focused on all the wrong stuff—establishing ambassadors, building hork-bajir-friendly stairs, all the surface victories that they can point to and claim that they’re making a difference.  But when it comes to taking real action, changing laws...”  She shook her head.  “They all care more about getting reelected than about making real, controversial changes.”

Jake tilted his head toward her, frowning.  “Hork-bajir-friendly stairs?”

Cassie rolled her eyes.  “Since we all know hork-bajir just love hanging out inside human buildings.” 

“And are totally incapable of climbing human-sized stairs.”  Jake was smiling at her now.

Ha.

“So.”  Marco turned to me, blatantly pulling us out of their conversation.  “How’s whatsherface?”

I smiled.  “Bonnie’s good.  Her boss actually came here to film the trial, so she’s running the office right now.  She’s busy, but also proving herself.  The editing department won’t know what hit it.  And anyway, how hard is it to remember her name?  There aren’t many girls out there named ‘Bountiful Sunshine Park,’ so it shouldn’t be that hard.”

Marco shuddered.  “I am so glad that I am descended from good old Catholic squares.  Hippies should not be allowed to name kids.”

“Your square Catholic mom’s staying here, right?”  I made a general gesture to encompass the hotel whose cafe we currently inhabited.

“You say that like you didn’t personally arrange all her travel, organize all her notes for all her dirt on the good visser, and probably charge her phone for her before she left as well,” Marco said.

I shrugged.  “I'm also the one who figured out which day she’s going to testify, and her alibi in case of the disappearances of any reporters who feel the need to address her by the title of a certain yeerk whose name shall not be mentioned by those of us who value our lives.”

Marco grinned, tipping his glass of wine at me in acknowledgement.

“Her choice of prom dates, however?  That one was all her,” I added.

“Yeah, I figured,” Marco said.

The day before yesterday Eva had come sailing through the gauntlet of reporters arm-in-arm with Alloran himself.  She was elegant as a queen in a sweeping lavender gown that set off her elaborate updo and made no effort to hide the scars on her neck and arms, her wrist hooked delicately around Alloran’s elbow. Even I had a startled moment of dissonance on seeing the footage of those two proceeding so regally through the lines of paparazzi, Alloran leaning down slightly to listen as Eva whispered some private joke to him.

It was all misdirection, of course. All designed to keep the vultures focused on the image of “Visser Three and Visser One, United at Last,” as one tabloid had so tastelessly put it, rather than on the billion and one horrifically personal questions that the world had for Alloran at the moment. Not that Mr. Bad-Ass War-Prince I-Have-More-Monster-Morphs-Than-Anyone-Else-Alive would ever be _nervous_ in front of the media of a foreign species, of course. Not that he could in any way benefit from having a five-foot-nothing suburban mom there to protect him. Of course not. At least, that was the version Eva had given me, and I fully intended to stick to it.

“Yeah, your mom hasn't met an ex-host she can't adopt,” I said dryly.

Marco choked on a laugh midway through taking a sip of wine.

“Anyway, you're not grouped in with her security detail, right?” I said.

Marco glanced over at Cassie and Jake, who were still talking quietly to each other.  “I have a private bungalow.  Keeps the groupies at bay.”

“You poor thing,” I drawled.  “You have it so rough.”

“It’s not easy being this young and beautiful and famous as well.”  Marco smirked.  “Just last week I pulled a muscle in my arm from signing over four hundred autographs at a single event.”

“I cannot begin to comprehend the depths of your suffering,” I said.  “How’s your whatsherface, by the way?”

“Lyssa Greenfield,” he supplied, grinning wickedly.  “And she’s good.  Knows her way around a z-space engine, but she’s talented all over.”

“Well, at least your mother likes this one, unlike the last four,” I said before he could go into any more detail.

“Puh-leeze.”  Marco shot a glance at Cassie and Jake, the way I kept doing; neither one of us was actually all that interested in this conversation.  “If my mother’s approval was the driving factor behind my choice of partners, I’d already be married to you.  And no offense, but I’d sooner date a taxxon.”

“I can’t imagine why you’d think I would ever find that offensive,” I said dryly.

“Anyway, she only had it out for Aaron because she thought he was too shallow,” Marco said.  “Which, okay, Aaron was kind of appearance-obsessed, but have you _seen_ what he can do with his hair?  There are advantages to a little shallowness, let me tell you...”

I let him ramble for a while, both of us keeping half an eye on Jake and Cassie.  Cassie was doing most of the talking, and there kept being long pauses in the conversation, but at least she and Jake were smiling at each other.

A waiter came by and we all ordered.  Marco got a bottle of wine for the table and the waiter didn’t even ID him, but I guess that’s Europe for you.

"The biodiversity of this planet is unbelievable—there are billions of species, literally billions, all over the world.  And yet a majority of humans are only interested in the couple of hundred species that are _useful_ to them!"  Cassie suddenly snapped.

The two tables nearest to us fell silent, people glancing over to see what the crazy American was ranting about.

"Sorry," she said more quietly.

"I feel like I should be singing 'Colors of the Wind' right now," I said, to break up the tension.

Cassie shot me an odd look, but smiled gratefully after a second.

It was Marco who laughed.  "I don't know, 'Colors of the Wind' doesn't really sum up how terrifying ants and giant squids are.  Are there any songs out there about how if you're careless around Mama Nature she'll not only fuck your shit up like you won't believe, but probably also eat your body and gnaw on your bones for good measure?"

“How about that one Springsteen song?” I said.  “What’s it called?”

Marco snapped his fingers.  “‘A Hero for Us All.’”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“Wait, what song is that?” Jake said.

Cassie put a hand over her mouth, not quite hiding her smile.  “You didn’t know Bruce Springsteen wrote a song about you?”

I couldn’t believe he’d missed it either—or that I’d been missing out on such prime material for mockery this entire time.  I was failing in my duty as an older brother.

Jake opened his mouth to say something, and then left it hanging open, clearly unable to come up with an adequate response.

“Don’t worry, it’s not even a good song,” Marco said, patting Jake on the arm.

“You’re only saying that because you only get one mention in the third verse,” I said.

“No, I’m saying that because it proves once and for all that there are in fact _zero_ words in the English language that _actually_ rhyme with ‘Animorph,’” he said smugly.

“Technically,” Cassie said, “The way that he pronounces ‘swarf,’ it kind of sounds...”  She gave up.  “Yeah, okay, it still doesn’t really rhyme.”

“And anyway,” Marco said, “What the hell is a ‘swarf?’  Has anyone here seen a swarf in real life?  Do you go to the store and pick up a pound of swarf, or does it come in gallon jugs?”

“I think I need to hear this song,” Jake said faintly.  “Or maybe that I need to stop listening to music entirely so that I can go the rest of my life _without_ hearing it.”

“It’s not that bad,” Cassie said.

Marco snorted.  “It’s that bad.”

“The line about how ‘Superman exists, and he’s an American,’ is pretty unfortunate,” I admitted.

“‘Super...?’  Oh my god, kill me now,” Jake muttered.

I kicked the leg of his chair.  “First finish your food.  You need to eat something to have your head screwed on for later, and it’s good for you.”

Jake narrowed his eyes at me.  “It’s pizza.  Pretty sure it’s not good for me.”

“Nonsense.  It’s a great source of carbohydrates.  And sodium.  And saturated fats.”

Jake muttered something rude in response, but I missed it.  It had just dawned on me why Cassie was even now staring at me in surprise for the third or fourth time this conversation: we had technically never met each other before.

Oops.  If there had been a time to introduce myself, it would have been like twenty minutes ago when we first sat down.  But she already knew who I was.  We just... didn’t know each other.  Well, I knew her, but she didn’t know me.  Weird.

“You need to read your own press more,” Marco was telling Jake.  “You’re missing some great gems—the Marcus Harvey portraits, the unauthorized biographies, the tell-all articles from that girl Brittany you _didn’t_ go to Homecoming with...”

“We can’t all be as shallow as you are,” Jake said tolerantly.

“The unauthorized biography is great,” Marco said.  “Total BS, of course, but at some point it’s so offensive it’s actually funny.”  He pointed his fork at me.  “Your ‘tragic story’ gets a whole chapter.  You should read it.”

“Okay, even I’m not shallow enough to think any press is good press,” I said.  “There is no way in hell anyone could write a whole biography chapter on me without resorting to making shit up.”

Marco shrugged.  “Comes with the territory.  Save the planet, get rewarded by people making up lies about you for the rest of your life.”

“Speaking of which, we’re probably being photographed by half the people in this cafe right now,” Cassie said dryly. 

Jake scooted a couple inches lower in his chair, hunching his shoulders.  Like that was going to help.

“Trial of the century, right?” I said, disgusted.

Cassie smiled.  “There are still ninety-nine years to go in this century, so don’t bet on it.”

“I understand why they have to do it this way,” Jake said tiredly, “But...”  He glanced at me, like I was some kind of legal expert.  “Couldn’t they make it one of those trials where no one but the court artist is allowed to watch?”

“Too big,” Cassie said.  “Too much at stake.  I guess a lot of people see this as the final act of clean-up for the war.  Like after this it’ll finally be over.”

“Won’t that be nice for them,” Jake said quietly.

No one answered him.

“So,” Marco said after a while.  “At least we’re pretty sure the judges’re gonna decide to convict, right?”

Cassie shrugged.  “It’s never a sure thing.”

“The evidence against him is pretty overwhelming,” I said.  “It’s not like there are any other suspects or there’s a huge mystery...”  I wished I sounded more certain, but the reality was I knew nothing whatsoever about how international trials worked.  I'd been completely unprepared for the strange complexities of the last murder trial I'd testified at, and that one had been based on standard American laws.

“Defense is still going to throw everything and the kitchen sink at trying to get a shorter sentence.”  Jake sounded fed up with the whole thing already.  “And if they can confuse the issue at all by making the witnesses look bad, then you can bet they will.”

“Yeah, it’s a political mess.”  Cassie stabbed her straw through the ice of her drink with unnecessary force.  “The defense has already managed to throw out Alloran’s testimony under the international laws against self-incrimination.”

Jake choked on a sip of water, almost spitting on the table.  “Laws against _what_?”

I slowly uncurled the fingers of my right hand, flattening them against the tabletop.  I could feel my pulse pounding under my skin.

Cassie offered him a closed-lip smile.  “Self-incrimination.  Self.”

“What a friggin load of crap.”  Marco shook his head in disgust.

“Are they going to charge Alloran with anything?”  Jake couldn’t help the worried glance he shot at me.  “Are they seriously going to start pinning crap the yeerks did on the hosts?”

“No,” Cassie said.  “That’d be way further than even the craziest lawyer is willing to go.”

Jake frowned.  “Then how...?”

“No need,” I said, smiling humorlessly.  “They probably just used the Vicky Austin argument.”

Cassie looked grim.  “Probably.”

Vicky Austin had been an award-winning modernist chef with her own live cooking show.  Had been, up until just over two years ago.  In the middle of shooting an episode she’d suddenly looked straight at the camera, gasped out “Don’t trust... the Sharing...” and then bashed her own brains out with a meat tenderizer.  The cameras had cut before anyone got any footage of the yeerk inside her split-open skull, but it had been there all right.

By all accounts she’d been a good person and a brilliant chef.  What she’d done had taken an incomprehensible amount of willpower, and she’d died trying to warn the world about the yeerks.  There was no doubt that she was a hero.

I hated her guts.

“Vicky Austin argument?” Marco asked.

“If she could do it, why not everyone else?”  I could hear the bitterness in my own voice.  “Her case proves that it’s possible for a host to commit suicide to avoid continuing infestation, so any host that _didn’t_?  Must have secretly wanted to be there.  Maybe just a little bit.  Maybe just deep deep down.  But if Alloran had _really_ wanted to stop Visser One in his heart of hearts, then he would have found a way.”  

“That’s bullshit,” Jake said tightly.  “Complete and total.”

I sighed.  “Yeah, we know.”

“Vicky Austin got lucky.  Had a one-in-a-billion chance.  It simply wasn’t possible for anyone else!”  Jake was getting steadily louder.  “And even if she wasn’t.  Even if it was _possible_ for _everyone_ , it doesn’t even matter!  You can’t _incriminate_ people for not having killed themselves!” 

“Nobody’s disagreeing with you, midget,” I said placatingly.  People were starting to turn and look at us from other tables.

Jake took a deep breath, eyes still burning with righteous fury.  “Should put a yeerk in some of _their_ heads, see how well _they_ do at resisting.”

“Probably better if you don’t say any of that on the stand tomorrow,” Marco suggested.

“Anyway,” Cassie said.  “Point being, I don’t know that this is going to get wrapped as quickly and nicely as we’re hoping it will.”

Jake clenched his fist against the tablecloth.  Cassie put her hand over his, gently unwinding his fingers to lace them through her own.

It was then that the woman at the next table over pulled out a small digital camera and none-too-subtly started taking pictures.

************

“The defense objects to this witness.”

Jake blinked, looking surprised. He'd been about to say something, but now he closed his mouth without a word.

Visser One’s head lawyer had stood up. Her shoulders were tight with tension, but she held her head high and her expression was unpleasantly smug.

I exchanged a glance with Marco. He shrugged, looking worried as well.

The Chilean judge leaned forward to address the defense lawyer. “What is the nature of your objection?”

“Your honor, this witness is not mentally sound enough to give objective testimony,” she said. “We have documents in our possession indicating that this witness was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder by a licensed psychiatrist in the summer of last year. Both of these disorders have known associations with mental confusion and distortions of memory. Furthermore, we have subpoenaed medical records which indicate that the witness is currently under the influence of a mood-altering drug known as fluoxetine, which is itself associated with altering users’ perceptions and cognitive processes.”

I jumped to my feet, fists clenched. Marco yanked me back into my seat.

“Whatever you're thinking of doing,” he whispered, “it won't help.”

Jake was staring at the defense lawyer like he didn't know what language she was speaking or even what species she was from.

“With all due respect to this court, one needs no further proof of this witness’s mental instability than the fact that he is a mass murderer.  A war criminal.”  The defense lawyer jerked her chin at Jake, who swayed on the spot, dead white.

The Chilean judge overrode the objection.  The prosecutor stood up and tried to start the trial.  Jake didn't seem to hear the questions.  They offered him the chance to continue later, and he shook his head.

I wanted to close my eyes.  I wanted to put my hands over my ears and start humming loudly.  I wanted to run out of the room.

Mostly I wanted to charge up to the podium, grab Jake, and drag him out of here before that fucking asshole of a lawyer with her nasty little smile and her sick ugly face could ask him any more questions.  But I knew that I wouldn't be helping him if I did.  All I could do was watch, and squirm, and pray that anti-alien extremists decided to attack the Hague at some point in the next thirty seconds.

"But, uh, since they, uh.  Um, yeah, that's when he.  Uh, that is, we—I mean, the defendant, he..."  Jake's face was blank.  Lifeless with shock.  Like a soldier who had just been shot in the chest and was already dead but just didn't know it yet.  His eyes were following a moment long past, flinching away from sights and smells that existed only in his mind.

"I’d like to buy a verb, please," Marco muttered somewhere to my left.  He sounded just as agonized as I felt.  “Verb, Big Jake.  Verb.  You can do it.”

"Don't count on it," I said softly.

This pattern—the tight knuckles, the clenched jaw, the way he repeatedly moistened his lips—was excruciatingly familiar.  I had seen it before dozens of times when one of our parents asked him a question that he didn't even hear, mind trapped a million miles away.  And yet he always tried to answer anyway, always tried to pretend everything was okay even though he was terrible at pretending.

"... And that's what happened," Jake finished in a whisper the microphone barely detected.

"They probably wouldn't evacuate if I stood up and started yelling that the building was on fire, would they?" I asked.

"They might if we actually did set the building on fire.  Do you have anything to use as accelerant?"

I finally did look away from Jake because that one was _Cassie_ , not Marco.  And she'd spoken without even a hint of irony.

"What?" she said defensively when both Marco and I continued to gawk at her in silence.  "There are alarms and evacuation procedures—it's not like anyone would be injured if everything went according to plan."

"You do realize we'd end up getting thrown in a Dutch prison, right?" Marco said.  "Possibly for life?"

She shrugged, mouth tightening bitterly.  "They haven't invented a prison yet that can actually hold us."  Unlike Marco and I, she hadn't looked away from Jake once this entire time.  Her expression was harshly blank, but there were tears shining in her eyes.

I wasn't sure we were speaking hypothetically anymore.

"I see."  Visser One's asshat of a lawyer cocked her head, eyes narrowing cruelly.  "And you seriously thought you were _justified_ in attacking a defenseless civilian of another species?  Forgive me, but were you being sadistic, or just childish?"

Forget a fire.  Killing that fucking _traitor to her species_ would also be a pretty effective way of delaying the trial.

I wasn't aware that I had taken several steps toward the podium, or that I'd started to morph.  But this time when Marco grabbed my elbow to yank me back to my seat, my skin was already covered in scales.

“ _Don’t_ ,” he hissed.

I jerked my arm away, glaring at him, but I didn’t try to get up again.

"Objection!" one of the prosecutors snapped.

"Sustained," the Kenyan judge said flatly.  "Mr. Berenson is not the one on trial here, and if you make one more remark harassing the witness then you will be forced to step down."

Dickhead Esquire lifted her chin. "This line of inquiry is meant to establish that my client was not the aggressor but was only trying to defend against the continuously escalating threat posed to his people by the terrorist cell harassing and killing his fellow yeerks."

"'Terrorist cell?'" Marco said loudly.

I ignored him.

Jake didn't appear to have registered the exchange between Attorney Fuckface and the judge.  He was breathing in shallow, rapid gasps that were violent enough to cause his whole body to rock slightly with every panicked inhale.  His mouth was slightly open as he tried and failed to draw in enough oxygen, eyes fixed on a point somewhere in middle distance as the horrors inside his head played out across his face.

He looked like an old man so beaten down by everything he'd seen that he'd forgotten what it was not to be afraid.

The rest of the world probably just looked at him and saw a nervous kid.

"Just answer the question," the fucking bottom-feeder said.

"He can't," I pleaded under my breath, the words thickening and running together.  "Can't you see that?"

**************

"So let me get this straight." I crossed my arms. "You plan to knock my brother out, kidnap him in the middle of the night, drag him into a helicopter, throw him out of said helicopter into the Arctic Ocean, and then leave him there.  To cheer him up."

Cassie shrugged uncomfortably. "Yeah, but when you say it like that it just sounds..."

"Reckless?” I suggested. “Poorly thought out?"

She opened her mouth to answer, expression defensive and edging toward angry, but then gave up with a sigh.  "Dolphin morphing is all I’ve got.  If you have a better idea about how to help him right now, I’m all ears.”

I looked away. I didn’t, outside of killing Visser One's lawyer.  Which, yeah, would probably do more to make me feel better than to help Jake.  But it was still tempting.

"Do you think you could talk him into it?" Cassie said, bringing me back to the moment.

"What, morphing a dolphin?" I said. "Do you really think it'll help?"

She bit her lip. "Have you ever morphed a dolphin?"

"No, I hate swimming."

The look she gave me suggested that this was the stupidest reason for not morphing she had ever heard in her life. "Try it some time. Dolphins are..." She thought for a second. " _Wise_ is the wrong word, because that's a human way of looking at them.  But they're peaceful, and joyful. It's hard not to be happy while you're a dolphin, because they don't know how to be unhappy."

"How do you know he won't just morph a fish?" I asked.

"Trust me, no one is going to turn into a trout who could be a dolphin instead."

"Cassie..."

At my tone her expression hardened into more defensive lines, shoulders straightening in silent challenge. I barely knew her, but I could see why Jake and Rachel had always liked her.

"Do you really think this is going to help?" I asked. She opened her mouth to answer and I held up a hand to stop her. "And how likely do you think it is that this is all going to go to hell and make everything worse?"

Her expression remained firm. "We have to do something. After what happened today—"

I closed my eyes, nodding once. I knew.  No doubt about that.

"And we need to get him talking, if nothing else," she said earnestly. "Maybe this will work, maybe it won't. But Marco and I care about him too much to let him keep spiraling downward without trying to do something about it."

Yeah, since I’d spent the past year sitting around eating popcorn as I watched him beat himself up.  Since I didn’t care at all.  “He’s been doing better.  I know you’d never know it from today, but he’s been doing well.  Getting out of the house.  Doing things.  Sleeping more.  Talking about the future.  Today was just—”

“Today was bad.”  She raised her eyebrows.  “And it wasn’t his fault, I’m not saying that, but...”  She swallowed, eyes sliding away from me.  For a minute there she looked almost as lost in her own head as Jake had this afternoon.  “It was bad.  And I want to...  To do something.”

"Okay, fine."  I glanced away again.  There was no one else anywhere near; we were in one of the private boxes surrounding the main court area hours after the end of the trial and there was no one around.  "Do your thing."

Cassie smiled.  "Thank you.  So, we could use your help in making sure that he's distracted—"

"No."

She blinked, caught off guard by the flatness of my tone.  "What?"

"You—and Marco—you can try your whole kidnapping idea, see if it works," I told her.  "And I wish you all the luck in the world when you do.  But leave me out of it.  And if anyone asks, I'm going to deny you ever told me."

Her smile faded, and now she looked a little hurt.  "So, what?  You want the credit if we get through to him but not if we don't?"

I shook my head, trying to figure out a way to explain it to her.  "You, me, and Marco are pretty much the only three human beings Jake trusts on the whole damn planet.  If you two don't pull this off, and if he comes out of it feeling more betrayed than anything, I want him to be able to run to me to vent about it.  And that's not going to happen if all three of us gang up on him, even if he knows we're trying to help."

Cassie looked down, playing with the sleeve of the formal dress I could tell made her uncomfortable.  "Okay," she said at last, looking up at me.  "I won’t tell anyone I told you."

"Thanks," I said.

"And thank you.  Wish us luck?"

"Always."  I had no trouble sounding honest then.

She nodded, turning toward the door.  "Although, just so you know?"  She smiled sadly, looking as ancient and worn-out as Jake always seemed to.  "I'm not on the list of people Jake trusts.  Haven't been since... Well, you know.  You were there."  She opened the door and started to step through.

" _Cassie_!"

She flinched.  But she stopped moving, so I couldn’t care.

"That's not true."  I took a step toward her.  My heartbeat was audible in my ears although I wasn't sure if she'd scared me or just made me angry.  "Jake might be an idiot, and crap at communication, but he does trust you."

"Tom..." Her tone was so gentle it bordered on being condescending.  "I'm sorry that things happened the way they did—"

"If you're about to apologize for saving my life? _Don’t_ ,” I said sharply.

Cassie grimaced, but she didn't say anything.

"You saved me.  And you saved—I just mean, if Jake had gone through with it—"  I took a deep breath and started again.  "Jake trusted you more because you made that call, not less, and I know he went through a lot of crap and probably said some things that were completely unforgivable afterwards, but..."

Cassie started to speak and then stopped.  "I turned against him.  He had reason not to want me around."

"He's told me himself, it wasn't _you_ he doubted after that whole mess.  It made him doubt himself, because he trusted you to make the right call more than he trusted himself.  So the first time you two really disagreed..."  I shrugged.  "It did a number on his head.  And he took it out on you.  Like I said, crap at communication.  But it wasn't you."

"I wasn't thinking," she whispered.  "Sometimes I think—God, this is terrible, I shouldn't be telling you this.  But if I'd let him..."

I waited while she pulled at a loose thread on her sleeve and debated whether to say whatever it was.

She had to take two or three more deep breaths before she came to a decision.  "If I'd let him, do you think Rachel...?"

I flinched.  It wasn't anything I hadn't thought myself, but to hear it coming from Cassie was the worst kind of confirmation.  "Do I think she'd still be alive if I'd died? Yeah, probably."

"That's not what I meant."  Cassie took a step back into the room, letting the door close behind her.  "What happened was not even slightly your fault, and it wasn't even caused by your being alive.  It was Rachel's choice, and we need to... We need to let her have that choice, and not say that anyone made her do it."

"What did you mean, then?"

"That at the time I was thinking too much in absolutes.  Kill or be killed, black and white, there's a line we can't cross."  She folded her arms across her chest.  "So there were probably a thousand other possibilities for how that situation could have gone down, and I only focused on two: Jake killing you, or your yeerk killing him.  Maybe there was a third way out, something that Jake thought of that I didn't.  Couldn't.  Refused to."

"It happened.  And neither of us is an Ellimist, so we're not actually doing any good by picking over what could have gone differently," I said. 

Cassie opened her mouth to argue.

I cut her off.  "Thank you.  For letting me live through the war.  And for keeping Jake alive as well.  Thank you.  Okay?  Let’s leave it at that."

She swallowed, nodding without saying anything else.  This time when she reached for the doorknob she fumbled a little.  Maybe I hadn't convinced her, but I'd given her something to think about.

"If you don’t believe me, just talk to him yourself, yeah?”  I held the door open for her. 

"You know, it's funny." Cassie laughed a little, glancing toward the end of the hallway.  "I'd forgotten, but... Just before we went to meet up with Arbron.  Jake, he, uh, he said he wanted to give us a try again, after it was all over.  And I promised him that, one year after it ended, one way or another, we'd meet up and we'd talk.  Anyway, V-E Day was last week.  So I'd only be a little late."

Judging by the look on her face as she said the words, Cassie was about as big a fan as I was of everyone referring to the anniversary of Rachel's death as Victory on Earth Day.

"Sure," I said neutrally.  Whatever my feelings on the subject, I was aware that what happened between Jake and Cassie was ultimately none of my business.

"So maybe we should... talk.  I mean, I'm not necessarily expecting anything," Cassie said.  "I get that.  And we're both different people now."

I shouldn’t say anything.  Keep myself to myself.  It was none of my business.  Not my problem.  I should stay out of it.  Not my life, not my relationship, not my place...

Cassie hunched her shoulders, expression miserable and uncertain.

Fuck it.  "Look,” I said.  “Jake can be an idiot, and a thoughtless jerk, and more than a little arrogant when pissed off, and about as romantic as old dryer lint.  And the kid's got baggage.  Like, a _lot_ of baggage." I took a deep breath.  "And if you don't want to get wrapped up in any of that, for your own sake or just because you're not interested?  I can respect the hell out of that."

Cassie opened her mouth to answer and I held up a hand to stop her.

"However," I continued, "if all of this is that dumb middle school thing of you thinking he hates you and him thinking you hate him and none of that being true?  Fuck that.  Make the first move, because you're gonna die of old age waiting for him to do it."

Cassie ducked her head as if smiling despite herself.  “I, um, I don’t know,” she said, more sober.  “But...”  She shrugged.  “I can talk to him tonight.  And I can promise I’ll listen.”

“Yeah,” I said dryly.  “Hopefully you won’t have to fish him out of the ocean first.”

******************

Sure enough, Jake disappeared a few hours later and there was no sign of Cassie or Marco either.  The security team found this turn of events worrying until I made up a bald-faced lie about Jake wanting some time alone and strongly implied that a stray grasshopper on the windowsill was in fact his clever disguise.  I figured I owed him after all the times he’d covered for me sneaking out during high school.

It was nearly three hours later that the door of the hotel room opened and Jake squelched his way inside.

“You know,” I said, shutting my book and glancing over, “you’re actually supposed to take your clothes off _before_ you jump in the hotel swimming pool.”

Jake ignored this as he picked his way across the carpet, carefully dodging the pieces of plastic that littered the floor.  “What happened to the TV?” he asked instead.

I lifted my head off the bed long enough to give it a considering look.  The in-room television certainly _looked_ like it had been ripped off the wall and smashed against the end table by someone who was pissed off about it showing footage of his little brother having a panic attack one too many times.  But that was probably just a coincidence.

“Dunno,” I said guilelessly.  “It was like that when I got here.”

Jake let it drop, throwing himself onto the other bed with a distinct squishing noise.  “You go ahead and tell that to the hotel security, okay?”

I reopened the little paperback I’d been reading before he got here. “Yeah, yeah, lying with a straight face is my superpower, remember?”

Jake didn’t answer.

Leaving him to whatever it was he was thinking about, I turned back to the story of the last 80 humans trying to survive the destruction of the Earth so they could go repopulate a different planet.  (And I thought _I_ had problems.)

It had to be half an hour before Jake spoke again.

When he did, he shook himself off and said, very quietly, “I think sometimes Cassie knows what she’s talking about.”

I smiled into the paperback.  “Yeah, she really does.”

*****************

They called Marco to testify the next day.  He sauntered up to the podium, apparently basking in the attention of the cameras and the audience.

“Please state your name and occupation for the record,” the Kenyan judge told him.

Marco leaned into the microphone.  “Marco Pietro Alvarez.  Former superhero, current movie star.”

There was a small smattering of laughter from the audience.

“Please tell the court how you first became aware of the presence on Earth of the yeerk species,” the prosecutor said.

“You sure you want me to?” Marco shot a pointed look at the head defense lawyer.  “Because according to my therapist—yeah, I’m in therapy—I started meeting the criteria for PTSD when I was thirteen years old.  I’ve had nightmares and the occasional panic attack since that time when I was eleven and my mom never came home.”

He was still speaking lightly, still smirking nonchalantly.  But we were sitting close enough that I could see how tightly his hands were clenched around the edges of the podium.  That he was shaking with coiled tension.

“I’ve never actually tried to kill myself, but I’ve given it a good bit of thought a couple times in the past,” Marco continued.  “So I’m just saying...”  He raised his eyebrows at the defense lawyer.  “If my boy Jake isn’t _mentally sound_ enough to know what’s what, then I’m sure as hell not either.”

There was a ringing silence in the amphitheater-sized courtroom for several seconds.

“We have no objection to admitting your testimony,” the defense lawyer said at last.  She sounded like she was speaking through a jaw that had been wired shut.

“Awesome.”  Marco rubbed his hands together.  He was still very pale.  “So.  You were saying?”

“The circumstances under which you first became aware of the yeerk presence on Earth,” the prosecutor said.

“Well, it’s like Jake said: construction site, andalite fighter, holy crap the planet’s being invaded.”  Marco grinned.  “Only the whole time all of this is going down, I’m thinking, if I get my sorry butt murdered in this stupid construction site, my dad is gonna be so smug.  Because he told me _how many times_ that I should never ever take that shortcut home from the mall, and then I did it anyway.  Of course, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t concerned I was going to be beheaded by the alien controlling our vice principal when he told me that, but still.  It’d be pretty embarrassing.”

There was another smattering of laughter from the audience.  Equilibrium regained, Marco kept up his steady repartee with the prosecution throughout his testimony, and practically danced his way through the cross-examination.

When he stepped down from the podium, he made it two steps into the audience before Eva grabbed him.  She pulled him into a fierce hug against her shoulder and hung on for a long time.  Finally she turned and led him out of the courtroom, arms still wrapped around him.

***************

My own testimony, three days later, was unbelievably simple by comparison.  It was just a series of yes-and-no questions:

“Are you the former host of the yeerk Essa four-one-two of the Madra Prime pool which at the time of its death held the rank of Visser Seventeen?”

“Yes.”

“Did you accept infestation by the yeerk Essa four-one-two of the Madra Prime pool voluntarily?”

“No.”

“Did you witness War-Prince Alloran-Semitur-Corrass under the hostile control of the yeerk Esplin nine-four-six-six-prime of the Jahar pool which at the time held the rank of Visser Three willfully murder War-Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul?”

“Yes.”

“Did you hear statements made by the yeerk Esplin nine-four-six-six-prime indicating that his control of the host War-Prince Alloran-Semitur-Corass was hostile and involuntary?”

“Yes.”

“To the best of your knowledge, did Esplin nine-four-six-six-prime have reason to believe that his own life or the lives of others were in immediate danger at the time when he killed the yeerk Odret one-seven-seven and his host Samuel Cornick for insubordination?”

“No.”

On and on.  They all seemed to really like using full names—even I got a lot of “thank you, Thomas” from the prosecutors—but they also let me answer as slowly as I wanted, so I didn’t bother correcting anyone.  The defense lawyers didn’t even cross-examine me, not really; they just asked a couple questions about whether I’d ever felt any sympathy for the yeerks, and then dropped several huge hints that being related to Jake and Rachel meant I was too biased to be a useful witness anyway.

I was one of a string of eight or nine ex-hosts who all got called up to say basically the same thing (“yes, I saw Visser Three kill people,” and “no, it wasn't Alloran doing the killing”); the prosecution was clearly using us as a device to drive home the point that this guy was definitely 100% totally guilty as charged.

Finally, almost a week later, the trial was wrapping up.  Jake had disappeared three more times during that span—I have no idea if he was meeting Marco or Cassie or anyone.  Every time I covered for him, although I’m pretty sure the security team was getting tired of me pretending to have conversations with whichever random insect I happened to come across at the time.

And then it was the last day, and it was over.  Five consecutive life sentences for the visser, which was actually less than the prosecution had been pushing for.  Not that it mattered, at least in my book.

We walked outside that last day, and I had to duck hastily.

The osprey almost hit me when it buzzed overhead, landing on the ground just in front of Jake.  We were getting ready to load back onto the little airplane, and there were now over thirty _very tense_ security guys watching the bird with their hands on their guns.

“Marco, you’d better demorph before you get shot,” Jake said.

The osprey sprouted off the ground immediately, and I blinked in surprise, because that wasn’t Marco.

“Sorry,” Cassie told the security people.  “I just wanted to catch him before he went.”

The balding blond guy who appeared to be in charge made a gesture, and everyone else relaxed a tiny bit.

Jake opened his mouth to speak, and Cassie held up her hands.

“Hang on,” she said.  “I just wanted to tell you that I did a lot of thinking about what you said the other night, and I want you to know that I’m not sure you’re right but I’m not sure you’re wrong, and anyway I miss you so much all the time that I want to maybe take a risk and—”

She lunged up onto her tiptoes and grabbed Jake around the waist. He had time for a single small noise of surprise before she kissed him full on the mouth.

Cassie dropped back to her feet.

Jake, blushing neon red, raised a hand to touch his lips.

“Anyway,” Cassie said.  “Sorry.  I should have asked, but, uh...”

Jake caught her hand in his before she could pull away.  “Call me?” he said breathlessly.

“Yeah.”  Cassie looked up at him through her lashes.  “I’ll do that.  You... fly safe?”

“Okay.”  Jake grinned at her like this was the most brilliant suggestion he had ever heard.

I rolled my eyes at the nearest security guard, who remained stony-faced.  “He’s going to be insufferable the whole way home,” I told the guy anyway.


End file.
